The central parks, Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, Green Park, and St. James’s Park, contain respectively 274, 360, 55, and 60 acres—in round numbers 750 acres. Add to this Holland Park, the enclosed meadow-like grounds adjoining Kensington Palace, Hyde Park Gardens, St. George’s burial-ground, and Buckingham Palace Gardens, and we get altogether a total of about nine hundred to one thousand acres of almost continuous green country, extending from High Street, Kensington, to Westminster. This very large area (for to the eyes of the flying bird it must appear as one) is favourably situated to attract and support a very considerable amount of bird life. At its eastern extremity we see that it is close to the river, along which birds are apt to travel; while three miles and a half away, at its other end, it is again near the Thames, where the river makes a great bend near Hammersmith, and not very distant from the more or less green country about Acton.
There is no doubt that a majority of the summer visitants and wanderers generally that appear in the central parks come through Holland Park, as they are usually first observed in the shrubberies and trees at Kensington Palace. Holland Park, owing to its privacy and fine old trees, is a favourite resort of wild birds, and is indeed a better sanctuary than any public park in London. From the palace shrubberies the new-comers creep in along the Flower Walk, the Serpentine, and finally by way of the Green Park to St. James’s Park. But they do not stay to breed, the place not being suitable for such a purpose. It is possible that a few find nesting-places in Buckingham Palace Gardens, and that others drift into Battersea Park.
Another proof that these parks—so sadly mismanaged from the bird-lover’s point of view—are situated advantageously may be found in the fact that three of the species which have established colonies in London within the last few years (wood-pigeon, moorhen, and dabchick) first formed settlements here, and from this centre have spread over the entire metropolis, and now inhabit every park and open space where the conditions are suited to their requirements. These three needed no encouragement: the summer visitors do certainly need it, and at Battersea, and in some other parks less than one fourth the size of Hyde Park, they find it, and are occasionally able to rear their young. Even the old residents, the sedentary species once common in the central parks, find it hard to maintain their existence; they have died or are dying out. The missel-thrush, nuthatch, tree-creeper, oxeye, spotted woodpecker, and others vanished several years ago. The chaffinch was reduced to a single pair within the last few years; this pair lingered on for a year or a little over, then vanished. Last spring, 1897, a few chaffinches returned, and their welcome song was heard in Kensington Gardens until June. Not a greenfinch is to be seen, the commonest and most prolific garden bird in England, so abundant that scores, nay hundreds, may be bought any Sunday morning in the autumn at the bird-dealers’ shops in the slums of London, at about two pence per bird, or even less. The wrens a few years ago were reduced to a single pair, and had their nesting-place near the Albert Memorial; of the pair I believe one bird now remains. Two, perhaps three, pairs of hedge-sparrows inhabited Kensington Gardens during the summers of 1896 and 1897, but I do not think they succeeded in rearing any young. Nor did the one pair in St. James’s Park hatch any eggs. In 1897 a pair of spotted flycatchers bred in Kensington Gardens, and were the only representatives of the summer visitors of the passerine order in all the central parks.
The robin has been declining for several years; a decade ago its sudden little outburst of bright melody was a common autumn and winter sound in some parts of the park, and in nearly all parts of Kensington Gardens. This delightful sound became less and less each season, and unless something is done will before many years cease altogether. The blue and cole tits are also now a miserable remnant, and are restricted to the gardens, where they may be seen, four or five together, on the high elms or clinging to the pendent twigs of the birches. The blackbird and song-thrush have also fallen very low; I do not believe that there are more than two dozen of these common birds in all this area of seven hundred and fifty acres. A larger number could be found in one corner of Finsbury Park. Finsbury and Battersea could each send a dozen or two of songsters as a gift to the royal West-end parks, and not miss their music.
Of all these vanishing species the thrush is most to be regretted, on account of its beautiful, varied, and powerful voice, for in so noisy an atmosphere as that of London loudness is a very great merit; also because (in London) this bird sings very nearly all the year round. Even at the present time how much these few remaining birds are to us! From one to two decades ago it was possible on any calm mild day in winter to listen to half a dozen thrushes singing at various points in the gardens; now it is very rare to hear more than one, and during the exceedingly mild winter of 1896-7 I never heard more than two. Even these few birds make a wonderful difference. There is a miraculous quality in their voice. In the best of many poems which the Poet Laureate has addressed to this, his favourite bird, he sings:
Hearing thee first, who pines or grieves
For vernal smiles and showers!
Thy voice is greener than the leaves,
And fresher than the flowers.
Even here in mid-London the effect is the same, and a strange glory fills the old ruined and deserted place. But, alas! ’tis but an illusion, and is quickly gone. The tendency for many years past has been towards a greater artificiality. It saves trouble and makes for prettiness to cut down decaying trees. To take measures to prevent their fall, to drape them with ivy and make them beautiful in decay, would require some thought and care. It is not so long ago that Matthew Arnold composed his ‘Lines written in Kensington Gardens.’ It seems but the other day that he died; but how impossible it would be for anyone to-day, at this spot, to experience the feeling which inspired those matchless verses!